4 Reasons you need more inboxes.

“What,” you say. “More inboxes. I already have my email, my voicemail, and the pile of papers on my desk, not to mention the stack of unopened mail on my countertop at home. What do you mean I need more inboxes?”

A couple of years ago, I found myself struggling to keep up with the sheer volume of items involved in my work and life. The number of things I needed to remember to do and to deal with was growing each week. I felt like I was being swallowed alive by the urgent tasks surrounding me. I knew that there were many things I was forgetting and that were slipping through the cracks. Forget creative thinking or new ideas – I was working hard and yet I was still falling further and further behind. Needless to say it was discouraging.

The problem: I hadn’t discovered the freedom of multiple inboxes. A few months into my new role as transitional pastor and head of staff, I was introduced to the idea of multiple inboxes and a weekly ritual of processing that transformed my work week.

Instead of letting the urgent derail the important – I took the step to tryout this new way of inboxing. I added three new inboxes to my email, phone, and desktop – my car, my shoulder bag, and my biggest desk drawer. I knew that anything that ended up in any of those inboxes was safe. I didn’t need to think about it anymore in the moment. Instead, once a week, I gathered items from my various inboxes and processed through them. Filing what needed to be filed. Adding appropriate items to my task list. Setting meetings on my calendar for the coming week or beyond. And discarding whenever possible! In other words, instead of allowing the flood of items I encountered to hijack my week – I deferred most of them to an hour long weekly ritual.

Four things happened:

Peace of Mind: By adding inboxes in various places in my life, I didn’t have to worry anymore that I had forgotten something. Everything was safe in an inbox, from receipts, to notes to myself about an idea, to meeting requests. All of it would be seen again and dealt with appropriately. Which meant, I could dismiss those things from the front of my mind knowing that they would be there at the end of the week.

Freedom to Focus: Because I didn’t have to stare at the piles anymore, I was free to focus on the important tasks in front of me. My focus wasn’t pulled from a project or meeting in order to make a decision about an email, phone call or a piece of mail. By placing it in an inbox, I could focus, knowing that I would come back to deal with each item.

Margin for Meaningful Interruption: Instead fighting an uphill battle against the onslaught of emails and mail and phone calls and trying to keep track of details and ideas for various projects, multiple inboxes creating a landing point for the items that were distracting me and interrupting me during the day. By adding multiple inboxes, not only did my focus increase, I found that I actually had more margin in my day for meaningful interruptions. My staff found me to be more accessible. They weren’t met with a scowl when they knocked on the door of my office. In fact, appropriate interruptions became meaningful opportunities to connect with my team, to give input to their work, and to solicit ideas about things I was working on. I could respond to time sensitive emails and phone calls more freely within the rhythm of my day.

Increased Creativity: All of this, of course, hinged on whether or not I processed my inboxes at the end of the week. Much to my surprise, the weekly ritual of processing through my inboxes, was efficient, freeing, and actually improved my ability to stay on top of details that had been illusive and difficult to track. Moving to multiple inboxes freed up brain space for the important things that I needed to dream and think about each day for the sake of my organization. Instead of worrying about what I had missed, I was free to think big about the big picture.

The practice of multiple inboxes has had such a dramatic impact on my time and ability to lead that now I can’t imagine doing it any other way. So give it a shot – create a few more inboxes and see what happens. You may find peace of mind, increased creativity, freedom to focus, and space for interruption that can transform your ability to lead.